An open letter from Richmond-area health systems: Collaboration is key to address COVID-19

April 15, 2020

“We are all in this together” has never been truer than it is right now in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. In the Richmond area, this means a shared feeling of sacrifice, resilience and endurance. For the region’s major health care providers, it also means our commitment to work together to serve you – our community – and advance the care of all of our patients.

Bon Secours, HCA Virginia, and VCU Health are pledging our partnership during this difficult time to serve the greater Richmond area as we navigate the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19. We have been working together over the past weeks to share information and our health system’s predictive analytics models and to build a collaborative forecast tool that is allowing us to align our treatment efforts, expected surge volumes, resource needs, and our plans to address the curve when it reaches its apex.

Our hospitals are also partnering with local and state health and emergency management departments and Governor Northam to speak with one voice and to work as a unified team to face this threat. Our strength is in our shared mission to protect lives, care for the stricken, and work together to face this virus head on using our best scientists, clinicians, and resources.

Our health care teams and administrations are working together. We are supporting one another. We are sharing in the sacrifice—with thousands of our health care workers risking their own health and welfare to protect yours. We will remain steadfast in that commitment for the weeks to come until this COVID-19 threat has eased for everyone.

We cannot do this alone. We need your help. This is not a threat that can be solely tackled within the four walls of a hospital. Success is in our collective hands – yours and ours. Here is what we need you to do:

True social distancing.

Stay home.

Keep your contacts to only immediate family members within your household.

Wash your hands. Often.

Follow directions from emergency managers and elected officials. If you must go out, only do so for medical care, to buy provisions for a week or more at a time, or for essential work duties. And wear a face mask.

We hope that you will follow these guidelines so we do not have to see you in any one of our area hospitals because you have fallen ill with COVID-19. We don’t want to treat more COVID-19 patients than necessary, and we certainly do not want to add to the stark tallies of those in our Commonwealth who have fallen ill to this virus or lost their lives.

Our hospital systems remain devoted to this community, and we are prepared to care for you and your loved ones if you need us. This is what has allowed us all to play a vital part in keeping our friends and neighbors safe and in good health for decades. We will continue that mission through this crisis and beyond. We are far stronger working together as hospitals and as a community than we could ever be alone.